This blog was originally created to document the 11,000 mile motor home trip in the summer of 2008 by Frank and Durelle Cloutier. We have decided to keep it going to document our further travels (and even some non-travels)

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Saturday, April 13, 2013

1964 Bear Hunt

ALASKAN BEAR HUNT

The Air Force sent me to Alaska in
1963 for a three year assignment as a Radar Maintenance Officer for a
detachment from the depot at Sacramento (Det. 14 SMAMA). Although I was well versed in the rod and gun
skills, I had never shot at anything larger than a woodchuck in our
garden. Our first night after arriving
at Elmendorf AFB outside Anchorage we were welcomed with a meal of moose burgers. So I was quickly
acquainted with the culture. That
culture included camping. We didn't call
it RVing then. There were a few slide-in
pickup campers, some travel trailers and tents.
We had a small Apache pop-up tent trailer. As a result of, or as preparation for, salmon
weekends on the Kenai River or the annual moose and caribou hunts, my
office-mate and I acquired a used 31 cubic foot freezer.

In addition to the electronics repair in the shop,we also had several radar overhaul teams that performed scheduled and unscheduled
maintenance at a couple of dozen radar sites scattered over the vast expanse of
Alaska. In addition to the 15 AC&W
(Aircraft Control and Warning) sites there were six Aleutian radar sites that
were an extension of the fifties era DEW-line sites. The fourth such site was
located at Cape Sarichef on the western end of Unimak Island. Unimak Island is the first and largest Aleutian
island. The Aleutian peninsula extends
perhaps a thousand miles west of Anchorage and that string of islands extends another
1,400 miles westward into the eastern hemisphere until it is well west of
Hawaii. Unimak is a volcanic island about 1,500 square miles with a pair of
nine thousand foot peaks and a large, still smoking, caldera. The volcano is the tenth most active in the
world. There is a lighthouse and LORAN
station on the eastern end. There used
to be a cannery at False Pass at that point.
It was so-called because there appeared to be open water between the
island and the mainland. It was so
shallow at low tide you could sometimes find a whale or an occasional boat stranded in the pass; hence the
lighthouse. Although Unimak is well
populated by bear and caribou, the largest mammal on the rest of the Aleutians
is a fox. The western end contained the
radar site of about twenty people where everyone did double duty. The crypto chief was also the cook. There was one officer, Capt. Kirby Stafford,
who was in my radar class at Keesler AFB in ’60/’61.

I frequently accompanied my teams on
assignment to show support, help where I could, and learn, firsthand, the
issues they faced and to assess the teams in the field. I picked this one because I knew Kirby
Stafford. We spent a couple of weeks
there doing a depot level overhaul of the radar. We left with everything accomplished except
for the replacement of the 100 HP azimuth drive motor. This is a 300 pound
electric motor that rotates a large antenna.
There was only one spare in theater, and it was in our shop for
repair. So, we left with an agreement to
return to finish the job when the motor had been repaired.

Available flights were infrequent, so
while waiting, I wandered around the island.
I saw numerous Alaskan Brown bears.
So, when we were to return, I vowed to have all the paperwork and
logistics in place to enable me to shoot one of those giants and bring home a
rug.

The first thing I had to do was to get a
federal game permit because the Aleutians were incorporated into the Aleutian
Islands National Wildlife Refuge which falls under the Department of the
Interior. Now the Unimak Island Natural Refuge is controlled by the Alaskan
Bureau of Fish and Game. A prerequisite was a current Alaskan Sportsman’s
License which permits hunting, fishing and trapping in any of the dozen or so
game management units. These events
occurred nearly a half century ago, and I have not researched the current
procedures, but I know that now a guided hunt AFTER winning a lottery costs
$20,000.. Below is a copy of my actual
permit.

Next on the list was a suitable
rifle. I had an old, 1923 Model 98 Mauser 7 mm bolt action that had been re-barreled for a Remington 7 mm Magnum round and
sported a six power scope. It was
designed for the long range shots typical of a mountain goat or Dall sheep
hunt. It would prove to be perfectly
adequate for moose and caribou, but a 150 grain round is much too light to go
after the largest carnivore that walks the Earth. Purchasing a suitable rifle for a one-time
event was not feasible on a Lieutenant’s pay.
Fortunately, the machine shop that was part of my radar maintenance
depot, employed three old time Alaskans.
One of them, Dick Johnston, was a burly guy who happened to be the state
trap shooting champion and had many years of Alaskan hunting experience. He also had an H & H (Holland and Holland)
.375 Magnum that he was willing to let me borrow. The scope was a high luminosity device that
was only 1 ¾ power. There was a dot at
the center of the cross hairs that covered three inches at 100 yards. This rifle was the diametric opposite of my
own. It delivered a heavy, 300 grain
round at 2650 feet per second. There are
specialty sniper rifles for thousand yard shooting that are more powerful, but
this one’s recoil could crack your collar bone if you are not careful.

Finally, we had to finish the
refurbishment of the big azimuth drive motor and arrange for flight to Cape
Sarichef. We had wooden shipping crates
of tools and parts, but we also had a box containing the rifle, Dick’s 10
gauge, double barreled shotgun, and 20 pounds of salt for preserving the
hide. Happily he was accompanying
me. First, we had to swap out the drive
motor. It was no small task; and I
served as his apprentice. Once that was
done we had ten days before the next stop at Cape Sarichef by a Reeve Aleutian
Airways C-47.

Step one was to make sure that the scope
was properly zeroed. I made a target out
of a cardboard box with a three inch bulls eye, found a nice piece of driftwood
on the beach about a mile from the radar, spread out my parka in the sand
behind the driftwood and stepped off 100 yards and set up the target. I fired five two-round groups, using up half
of my box of ammunition. I tweaked the
scope with Dick’s help until the last four rounds were comfortably in the
bull. I have never worked harder at mind
over matter. When you are firing from a
prone position, you do not have your upper body rocking back to absorb some
recoil. Also, the prone position means
that the butt of the rifle is much higher on the shoulder…right on that collar
bone I mentioned. It is crucial when
zeroing to slowly squeeze the trigger as if you have no idea when it is going
to fire. By about the third round that
recoil was nearly bringing tears to my eyes.
I had qualified with several military weapons including the M-1,
carbine, BAR and .45, but none hammered my shoulder like this one. Man, it took everything I had not to flinch
and ruin the shot.

With that done, we started checking out
the bear population. We saw several six
to eight footers, one almost honey colored, that were possibilities, but I
wanted a bigger one. The troops
stationed there said the big ones were on the eastern end of the island. So I radioed the Coast Guard light house and
asked if we could spend a couple of nights there. It was a three man site headed by an E-6, and
they were happy for some company. I
asked Captain Stafford if I could buy a bottle of bourbon to take to them as a
‘hostess gift’. Although there was a
tiny club at the site, you can imagine that the rules pertaining to alcohol
were pretty strict. Kirby had to sign
for every bottle that came on site. It
was sold by the shot, the records were subject to audit. Nonetheless, he reluctantly sold me a bottle
of Early Times bourbon, but I had to pay for each shot! Eighteen shots at 50 cents each made for a
$9.00 bottle in 1964 dollars. It turned that grizzled bo’sns mate into a
generous host.

After a couple of days of observing the
island from some appropriate perches, Dick suggested that I shoot one of those
old bull sea lions on the beach. At that
time, in some areas there was an actual bounty on them because of the damage
they did to the salmon nets and salmon.
We didn't want bounty; we wanted some bait. The Alaskan brown bear is the most omnivorous
beast you can imagine. We saw several
that roamed the beach, eating any and all organic debris that washed ashore on
that remote island. Sure enough, when we
came back the next day and peeked over the hill, we saw that a big brown had
dragged the whole bull sea lion away from the shore and buried it as easily as
a dog would bury a bone. He was lying
there digesting a chunk of it and guarding the rest when we saw him. As I said earlier, it is a volcanic
island. The beaches are a dark gray, and
the sand is coarse and sharp. The beach
itself is perhaps 20 yards wide. Behind
it is a similarly sized swath of grass, and then a fairly steep bluff eroded by
centuries of surf. The bluff is covered
with knee high grass and no trees. The
plan was to keep out of sight (and smell) by circling away from the beach and
returning to the edge of the bluff directly above the bear. We did so and were pleased with the fact that
the wind was blowing in from the sea and straight from the bear to us.

Dick quietly reminded me of a couple of
the highlights from our previous discussions about how best to succeed. A head shot is futile. Looking at the skull in my study makes that
obvious. It would seem that a heart or
lung shot would be best. Dick strongly
disagreed. He insisted that if we were
broadside to the bear, the best shot would be right on the point of the
shoulder. As Dick put it, “A live bear
lying over there is a lot better than a dead one running over here.” He said to mechanically prevent his charge
and worry about killing him with the second shot. Actually, we were in a fairly comfortable
position. A wounded, charging bear would
have to navigate a fairly steep, sandy bluff while staring down my heavy rifle
a Dick’s even heavier shot gun. I was
initially puzzled by his choice of weapons.
He insisted that if it came to the end game where the bear was about to
win, ‘Old Betsy’ would “blow a hole in the bear that you could toss your hat
through!” Fortunately, it didn't come to that, but it was not without some
excitement.

The magazine held five rounds, and I quietly
chambered the first one and peeked through the grass at the bear. We knew he was a big one because we had
measured some of his tracks. There is an
old rule of thumb that says, “Add one to the number of inches in width of the
front foot at the ball of the foot. That
number, in feet, will be the average of the length and width of the hide.” Since the tracks were nine inches wide, we
could expect a ten footer. He was lying
down and apparently hadn't detected us.
We were fortunate because he was only 80 yards or so away. He was more or less broadside, facing
generally to my left. His head, however,
was swung around to his left so it was blocking a clear shot at his left
shoulder. I carefully put the cross hairs barely to my right of his head and high on the back edge of his left shoulder. I was shooting downhill at a pretty steep
angle, but at that range I just put that three inch dot where I wanted it and
squeezed. Then all hell broke
loose! He roared, stood up and started
turning around to find his enemy. I
later confirmed that the round had just missed the shoulder joint and proceeded
downward through his chest cavity and made a large exit hole in his right
armpit coming to a halt in his right forearm.
I still have that classically mushroom shaped round.

I quickly yanked that bolt back for round
two when the floor plate covering the next four rounds popped open and hung
there on its z-shaped spring. My next
four rounds were lying in the grass! I
picked up the first one and chambered it.
As he was still turning around, I quickly aimed at his near (right)
shoulder and fired…no more careful squeezing.
It knocked him flat, but he was quickly back on his feet. I also recovered the second round. It was a symmetrical version of the
first. Entry was high behind the right
shoulder and exiting from the left armpit and stopping in the left front
leg. I had not yet put him down to stay,
even though he was a dead bear. I was
bemoaning the inadequacy of my popgun. I
had no recollection of that dreaded recoil.
I found another round, opened the bolt, blew the grass out of the
chamber, and loaded round three. By now
he was running away from me, and I began to have thoughts of tracking a wounded
bear with unknown injuries. He was
running straight away from me and I just put those cross hairs on the center of
mass and fired. Down he went, and up he
got. Round four was a repeat of round
three. I’m sure I was getting flustered,
but Dick was keeping me calm. He said,
“Don’t hurry. Squeeze one more right on
the center line”. I did, and that 300
grain slug severed his spine, and he finally stayed down. Rounds three and four had entered left and
right, respectively, of the spine just below the bottom rib and exited around
his throat. Clearly, every round had
been fatal, but under slightly different circumstances he would have time to
return the favor before he succumbed.

Dick and I just stood there a while,
watching the bear while I resumed breathing, collected my equipment, my
thoughts and my sanity. We clambered
down the bluff and slowly approached the bear, rifle and shotgun at the ready. Dick poked the side of his snout with the
shotgun. His head rolled to one side,
his mouth opened, his tongue rolled out, and we could see that big exit wound
in his throat. We were finally beginning
to relax knowing that we were now facing a big job of skinning him. I generally knew what I was doing, but I was
glad to have the help of a guy who had skinned bears before. First we had to take the traditional
pictures. We found a couple of lumps of
driftwood to prop up his head and Dick took the picture below.

I don’t remember too much about the
skinning job. I remember discussing,
before the trip, the issue of bringing back some meat such as the tongue or the tenderloin. After all, black bear is highly prized game
meat. Besides, “wanton waste of game”
i.e. taking the horns and leaving the carcass is practically a capital crime in
Alaska. Brown bear is an exception. In Dick’s inimitable words, “Frank, you could
take the tenderest piece of that bear, cook it for six hours, and you wouldn't be able to stick a fork in the gravy!”
It was just as well. That big
green hide with four feet and a bushel sized head were plenty to carry. I remember the meat was not red. It was black without a trace of fat. I remember having to re-sharpen my Gerber
skinning knife several times because of all the sand embedded in his fur,
especially on the front legs from digging.
Finally, I remember when we opened up the chest cavity, the individual
organs were unrecognizable…they just all poured out onto the ground
together. How he got up four times is
beyond belief.

Now came the hard part. I had an Army issue pack frame, but this was
before waist belts and wide, comfortable shoulder straps. I made an old Indian ‘tumpline’ out of my
sweat shirt. The ends of the sleeves
were tied to the bottom corners of the frame while the body of the shirt was
stretched across my upper forehead to provide additional support for the
load. We spread out the hide, hair down,
and rubbed in ten pounds of salt, and rolled it up into something like a three
foot cube and lashed it to the frame. I
had a walking staff. We propped the pack
upright on a little mound. I bent my
legs and slipped my arms through the straps and adjusted the tumpline. Then with, the help of the walking stick, I
bent forward and stood up straight. With
the stick I formed a tripod. As you can
imagine, walking was a slow and careful process. It was a level comfortable terrain, but there
was about five miles of it. Dick added
my rifle, binoculars, and other gear to his load, and I handled the bear. I stopped from time to time; shook out my
legs, adjusted the straps, and drank some water.
But I did not put the load down as I didn't want to have to pick it up
again. It took all afternoon to get back
to the radar site. As we approached,
Dick yelled to a couple of airmen that were outside. They came down in an old Jeep and lifted my
pack off and put it in the back of the Jeep.
When we got to the vehicle side of the tower, they carried the pack over
to the scales used for weighing air freight.
The pack weighed 236 pounds! And
we weren't done.

Dick insisted that all my work would be
wasted if we didn't properly prepare the hide for a delay of perhaps a week or
so before I could get it to Jonas Bros, the renowned taxidermist in Anchorage. We appropriated some space on the concrete
floor of the motor pool and unwrapped the bear.
Dick broke out a couple of scalpels, and we set to work. First we peeled off the hide over the skull
sort of like unrolling a glove. Then we
worked on the feet, saving the pads and the claws. Then we meticulously scraped a hundred square
feet of hide being careful not to remove anything but the sub-cutaneous
fat. After rubbing more salt into the
backside of the hide, we were done. It
was a six hour job. Some of the troops
were very interested in the process and offered moral support and
conversation. I remember sandwiches
being delivered as well some more of that Early Times bourbon. I was exhausted. For the next day I could have s*** through a
screen door.

I don’t recall what it cost for Jonas Bros
to make the rug, but I would find a way to come up with whatever it cost. Meanwhile, I had some bones to deal with,
namely the skull and the penis or oosic.
It is about six inches long and seems out of proportion for such a large
animal. The cubs are born in hibernation
and weigh only a couple of ounces when born.
They crawl out of the birth canal and find their way to a teat, latch
on, and wait until spring. The bears are
not marsupials, but the process is similar.
I set up a Coleman stove in the rear of our shop at Elmendorf and put on
a pot to simmer all the meat off the skull.
There are bacterial/maggot solutions to that process that would have
prevented the shrinkage caused by the simmering. Since I missed the Boone and Crockett record
book by a half an inch, I probably should have gone that route. Oh, well!
The oosic and the two spent rounds that I found were simmered in a pot on the back of the stove. Then my loyal machinists bored a lengthwise
hole in the oosic in which I fitted a ball point cartridge.
When Durelle complained, I said, “Stop bitchin. If I were a smoker, I’d make a cigarette
holder out of it.” We had the rug for
several years. It was always a problem
displaying it in any house we could afford.
Typically the back feet were attached to the wall near the ceiling while
the front legs and head occupied some coffee tables or such. When we got to Wright-Patterson AFB in 1974,
we really had no place for it. Don and
Vi Robb were our next door neighbors in Alaska when I got the bear. He was stationed at Randolph AFB as the
Command Civil Engineer. They had a
sprawling place in a dry environment, so I asked them to assume custody until
we had a better place. So, George, the
bear, went to San Antonio. It worked
fine for several years. Every spring
they would brush some corn meal through the hide and keep it well aired
out. Eventually, their daughter, an AF
wife stationed at Offutt AFB in Nebraska, asked for the rug. Well, it didn't fare too well in
Nebraska. Years later we were informed
that the hair was falling out and that the rug was beyond salvage. I told her to cut off the claws, send them to
me and dispose of the rug. I now have
the pen, the skull, a bag of bear claws and some wonderful memories.